Page 18 of The Game

“Yeah. I love her to bits, even though it’s impractical when I’m away so much. Thank God for my adopted family.” I squeeze his arm and take a bite of flaky pastry that dissolves on my tongue in an explosion of sweetness. “Sure I can’t ask Steve to marry me?”

Damian smirks. “I’ll pass the message on.”

“Why would Arty bother with all this?” I mumble, still chewing. “He doesn’t like dogs. Can you even take back a present?”

“I’ll bet it’s because she’s got her own Instagram. He’ll be seeing dollar signs.” He purses his lips. “I’ll talk to your lawyer about what we can and can’t say to journalists about the fact he’s going after Pepper. What a jerk.”

He makes a note on his phone and picks up a hot pastry and nearly drops it. I reach up and pull two plates out of the cupboard.

“Anyway, babe, not one journalist cared,” he carries on. “Didn’t want the deets on why you guys had split up. Didn’t want to write about Arty Maroz. They just wanted to know all about the very sexy Adam Miller.” He winks at me.

“Oh stop! You’re incorrigible.”

“It’s excellent news, though. We’ve buried the Arty-being-a-jerk story beforeit’s even started. I don’t want to get into some argument and mudslinging in the press about his cheating video. It’s nasty, and he’d get publicity from that, too. Also,” he says, wiping his hands on his pants, “let me show you this.”

He pulls up a clip that starts with Adam laughing with Serge while he’s having his hair done, then he’s standing next to Serge and Julio with Anita behind him looking at himself in the mirror in his plum shirt. It cuts to Pepper bringing her pink rabbit to him, and a picture of the back of my red dress and shoes. Then his face appears in front of the camera, grinning. It’s wobbly, unguarded, and so goddamn cute—not like a made-for-social-media reel at all.

“It’s on his Instagram, and it’s now on yours and Pepper’s and it’s racking up the hits.” Damian scrolls through his phone. “Over two hundred thousand views on Adam’s account alone and he’s only got … Oh man, he’s got sixty thousand followers already! His marketing lady told me she only set up his account this morning.Holy shit.” He waves his hand. “But also, Rolex called me at 7 a.m. and they aredelighted. Look at this.”

He rewinds the video, and, at the end of my swinging arm, my watch is glinting on my wrist.

“You are the master, lady. Their marketing guy was practically wetting himself. Talking about how this was going to land him a promotion.” He laughs. “I’m going to let them reuse the footage. The dress people, too. See whether Adam took any more.”

I don’t feel like a master: My team just lost one of the biggest tournaments in tennis. But it’s fascinating how easily that, too, has been buried under everything around last night’s event.

“Could we get a Rolex for Adam?”

“I’m sure they’d gift him anything. I can ask them if you like.”

“Yeah. It’d be lovely to give him something. It was so kind of him to step in at the last minute. And thanks, Damian, you’re doing an incredible job. Just dealing with this and … I’m so grateful.”

He presses his hand to his chest. “Thank you. I love working here with you. But we haven’t even started talking about what Ireallycame to talk about, which is this.” He pulls a stack of newspapers out of his bag and spreads themover the kitchen countertop: They’re full of pictures of Adam and me, which is no doubt going to make Arty furious. One headline screams:

WHO IS ANNA TALANOVA’S NEW MAN?

“Oh my God, why are they all so interested?”

“Because you’re a successful tennis player?” Damian says, smiling down at the headlines fanned out over my countertop.

Am I going to be that successful tennis player when I head out to the Australian Open in January, though? Ugh. I hate the way that losing eats into me.

“It’s an interesting idea this,” he adds, waving his hand over the papers.

“What is?”

“Taking some new guy to an event. Deflecting bad news by giving the press something else to sink their teeth into.”

“That’s not really why I did it.”

Damian squeezes my arm. “I know, but your instincts are golden.”

“I hope Adam’s okay. I don’t want to be some asshole quasi-famous person who exploits a situation … who ends up using someone for their own gain.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t think that at all. Give him a call. If he’s amenable, we could definitely squeeze more publicity out of this.”

My only thought was that I didn’t want to annoy the sponsors of the awards event who provide all my tennis gear. And I’m delighted that Rolex is happy. It was touch and go when Barb, my agent, finally landed me the contract with them, and they negotiated me down hard. They didn’t want to sign a Russian athlete; there were rumblings that it wasn’t quite their image. Some of the tension in the back of my neck starts to lift.

My relationships never last. I’m away too much of the year, and my past history in Russia is awful, but I’ve had to accept that that’s my reality. I like Adam—he’s cute—and perhaps Damian is right. For the next seven weeks, before I head off to Australia, maybe we could have some fun, and a bit of positive publicity could help all round.

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